


Uncle Bacta Starts a Blog

by thehaikubandit



Category: Campaign (Podcast), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: spoilers for up to the beginning of the Roach arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 11:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12681255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: It's not easy being a parent (or an uncle) and everyone needs to do the best they can. Even if it means starting a Mum-blog...





	Uncle Bacta Starts a Blog

**TITLE**

How do you start these things? I’ve tried to do research and to be perfectly honest, I’m only doing this because I’m tired and maybe a bit drunk. Oh force, this is a terrible idea. If we get found by the Empire because I started a blog, I will never be able to live it down. Plus, they’ll take the kid, which will make this whole blog pointless.

But yeah, so I recently became maybe a dad. He calls us uncles, but, ok, no I should start from the beginning. Three of us worked with his mum, and did since he was only a few months old, but she died really recently, and now we’ve picked up an extra person, who he’s also calling an uncle. For all of this though, I feel more like his dad than anything else. But I don’t know how to deal with that. I didn’t have what you’d call a normal upbringing.

I think I need to make up a fake name for him. Do I? Some of you just seem to say The Kid. I guess that works. Less chance of slipping up there. But if anyone has any easy answers for me I’d love some.

How the vape do you do any of this?

How do I help him deal with the fact he lost his mum?

How can I let him be a kid, but also keep him safe from the Empire?

As for the others, well, his latest uncle is a big help. She (yeah, he just calls us all uncles, like I said) has been teaching him a whole bunch of school stuff. Which is great. He’s a really smart kid, and it’s the closest he’ll ever get to a real school. Plus she’s sensible. I guess I’ll call her Uncle L? Oh, wait, no, that won’t work. Ok, Uncle LL.

Then on the complete other side is Uncle T. He’s…. less sensible. At least we’ve got a lock on his sex toy locker. If we could get him to wear pants more often I’d be happier. I mean, like I said, I don’t know what’s a normal way to grow up, but I feel like he needs a bit of sheltering.

I forgot to mention, The Kid is five. Also not human, which, let’s face it, is an assumption that a lot of people make. But I don’t know that I’ll say more than that.

His last uncle is Uncle LG. Uncle LG reads with him a lot, which is really good! He was a big part of how The Kid learnt how to read in the first place. He reads him romance novels though, and I don’t know how much he filters out the inappropriate stuff. Does anyone have any good books to read with a child?

Any advice would be very much needed. If I post this, or anyone reads it. Kark it, here goes everything.

**Comments on TITLE**

_Guest:_ You spelled Mom wrong. Maybe you should get your “Uncle LG” to teach you how to read.

 _Uncle Dad:_ We’re not all from the Inner Rim mate. Some of us are from the Mandalore Sector.

 _Guld Rotohul:_ Just a heads up, you can title your posts, otherwise they’ll all just be called title. Good on you doing this though, blogs are super helpful as an outlet. Plus, I swear this site is more secure than the banks at times... I’ve been on the run with my little ones for the past four years and blogging every minute!

 _Uncle Dad:_ Thank you!

 _B &B&Bub:_ Five is such a strange age, they’re still kids but are starting to learn all about the Galaxy and how everything works. And it sounds like your one’s had to do a lot of growing up :( But adopting doesn’t mean you can’t be there for them. We adopted our girl when she was very small, and we’ve been honest with her all the way, it makes it easier on everyone. If he’s more comfortable calling you an uncle, then roll with it! You can still be there for him when he needs you.

 _Uncle Dad:_ Thank you!

 

**MAKING FRIENDS ON THE MOVE**

One of the things I worry about most is how The Kid is going to go without kids his own age. I grew up with heaps of brothers, and had more friends than I could count. The Kid on the other hand just has his uncles. And several pets.

How can you help a child interact with other children when you’re on the run? I know that some people leave their kids behind, but that is absolutely not happening. And we can’t exactly get another child. For one thing, we already have a large number of animals, a child and five adults on a ship that was built for two, three people tops. And for another, we are not abducting another child. Not that we abducted this one. Well, we did, but he was ours first. Having one the “normal” way is also out.

Having said that, part of me lives in fear of the day we find Uncle T has hundreds of illegitimate children and we end up looking after them all. While I don’t necessarily mind this whole dad, uncle thing, that would be far too many to look after. Especially if they all take after Uncle T.

He recently had the chance to play with friends his own age when we stopped at a concert. That was what got me the most worried, would he know how to interact with them? I think it went well though. He’s a good kid. The only hard bit was when it was time for us to go.

Sometimes we get letters from other children and he can get very upset when we don’t get to visit them. He knows that we have to be careful, and that any friends he does make are at risk from the Empire, but it’s one thing for him to know all that, and another to live with it. I’d love for him to have a penpal, but it just feels like such a risk. I know I’m being a hypocrite here, but this blog is apparently secure.

We got him a lot of pets recently, which seems to be a great way to teach him responsibility as well as give him friends. We have a, larger pet, who The Kid plays with the most. Sometimes he even dresses them up in matching robes to play jedi. It’s really very sweet. I was a bit worried at first. Large animals, especially this one, can be very dangerous. But they’re getting on great together!

He also now has a lot of lizards and fish. He plays with these in a very different way. Mostly he has to clean up after them, and feed them. Sometimes I worry that we treat him too much like an adult, but don’t give him the responsibility that comes with it. This feels like a way to help teach him some of the responsibility, while also making it fun.

I also ended up with a rabbit after stopping on a planet recently? I have no idea how to take care of a rabbit, so if anyone has any ideas, that would be much appreciated.

**Comments on MAKING FRIENDS ON THE MOVE:**

_B &B&Bub: _Make sure you keep it clean; gentle antibacterial soap and warm water is best – sometimes you can buy special cleaner wipes! Hopefully you got one made of silicone or other non-porous material, since that's way easier to clean. If it's silicon, avoid silicon lube, though! It'll melt it!

 _Uncle Dad:_ OH! OH NO NOT THAT SORT OF RABBIT!

 _Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ You should try it honey, running from the Empire must be stressful. You need to do something to relax ;) I’m sure that Uncle T has something you could borrow...

 _Uncle Dad:_ I AM PERFECTLY RELAXED THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

 

**LOOKING AFTER TALENTED KIDS**

Sometimes I envy people who are looking after normal kids on the run. Looking after a, gifted, child of a different species makes things hard.

We’ve got a lot of the species things down for now at least. I don’t know what we’ll do when he’s older, but that’s a bridge we can cross then. I’m sure Uncle LG will have an appropriate book for the whole, puberty thing. For now we just keep his horns a nice short length and make sure he gets his daily five serves of meat.

When we take him out in public, sometimes the difference in species causes attention that we don’t really need. We do disguise him at times. That can help. When possible we get him to stay on the ship, safely out of the way. But he gets bored, and lonely. I also worry about him when we aren’t together. If someone took him, or if he ran off, I don’t know what I’d do. That’s not true. I’d get him back. But I’d much rather not have to worry about any of that.

Sorry, I only write these when I drink, and I tend to ramble. The Kid’s asleep, please don’t worry about that. Given his other uncles I try really hard to be a good influence on him.

The main problem taking him out is with his, being gifted, attracting more attention. Especially from the Empire. We’ve taken some precautions to try and hide things, but I always worry someone will sense him. Or that he’ll do something at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people.

And I don’t know how to teach him how to use his gift, and to make sure he uses it to do the right thing. And not the other thing. He’s been displaying some worrying tendencies to do, not right, things recently. We’re trying to find someone who can teach him what to do, but obviously in this political climate it’s not easy. My exposure to the Gift is very limited. I did know someone once, but she’s dead now. Or, well, maybe. I don’t know. Kriff.

Does anyone else have a gifted child and have any advice? Or is anyone gifted reading this and have any advice? I’ll take what I can get at this point.

**Comments on LOOKING AFTER TALENTED KIDS:**

_Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ My advice would be to contact someone you know who can use the Force. Literally anyone. You would definitely know one person who can use the Force. So suck it up and accept help from them.

 _Uncle Dad:_ If there was anyone I knew, I wouldn't be asking the holonet for help. Did you even read the post? What do you think I’ve been trying to do? Also I didn’t mention the Force. So I don’t know where you are getting that at all.

 _B &B&Bub:_ Oh, we know all too well the problems of having a gifted child. We were lucky in that we could keep her mostly out of public sight until she understood she had to be responsible. Hubby also had a lot of experience working with gifted people, so he deals with the whole thing better than I do. The floating unnerved me a bit, I do have to say. Our main concern is keeping her safe and out of sight. So long as she has control, we aren’t too interested in teaching her things she can do.

 _Uncle Dad:_ Yeah, The Kid is far too set on becoming a, well, you get the idea, for not teaching him things to work. He keeps trying out things for himself. At least the new lizards keep him from being seen.

 _Guest:_ We haven’t told our son anything, but he certainly seems to be gifted. His father was. We just hope that if he doesn’t hear about anything, he’ll never try. But we’re isolated on the outer rim, so it makes it easier if he does anything. Or to stop him hearing rumours about any of that. He’s only five now, just like your kid, and I really hope that nothing happens as he gets older.

 _Uncle Dad:_ Good luck.

 _B &B&Bub: _May the gift be with you.

 _B &B&Bub: _Sorry, my husband stole my datapad and thinks that he’s funny.

 

**BOUNDARIES, AND HOW TO SET THEM**

When you’re working with three other “uncles” and an extra guest, it can be hard to make sure The Kid gets proper rules and stability. I grew up in a very regimented environment, and while I do think it was maybe too much for a child, it did help set clear boundaries.

Luckily on our ship, we have an intricate rule system. This may come as a surprise, with Uncle LG and Uncle T involved. Actually, being new, it’s Uncle LL that causes the most problems. So at least we have a good framework for The Kid’s behaviour. We have a new system with good guy points and bad guy points. For every 28 good guy points we give him a quarter of a merit, and then for every eight merit points he gets a jawbreaker. It’s working well so far.

When it comes to areas we need to work on, the biggest part of it comes from having no other children on the ship. He’s so used to being around adults, as are we, so we often fail to treat him as a child. We assume he knows things, or assume that he’s old enough for things he isn’t old enough for. He ended up flying the ship recently, and while we all survived, I am not happy that he did that at the age of five.

The lizards, as previously mentioned, have been great for teaching him responsibility. He’s been so good, and only one of them has died. And that wasn’t his fault, it was eaten by some of the rabbits. Those are gone now. Uncle LL has been using the pets to teach him all about the natural ecosystem and balance.

I’ve also started to teach him chores. We did compromise on this. He wasn’t a big fan of mops, so we play scrub foots, where we attach dusters to our feet. Does anyone else have any tips to make chores fun?

One thing I worry about a lot (I seem to only worry about things here. I’m sorry.) is that, being on the run from the Empire he gets exposed to lots of violence. We do try to teach him that it’s only ok to hurt bad guys, and prevent him from doing the killing, but I know it wasn’t fantastic for me as a kid.

I just hope that despite everything, he’s going to grow into a good, kind, responsible adult. Some days though, I feel like if he just lives long enough to grow up that would be enough.

**Comments on BOUNDARIES, AND HOW TO SET THEM:**

_Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ You seem to be teaching him a very black/white view of the world. Evil and good aren’t easy to define. He might benefit from a wider outlook. For example, the dark side of the Force isn’t evil. I absolutely agree with teaching him to defend himself, but try to do it without the sweeping generalisations.

 _Uncle Dad:_ He will go near the Empire and the Dark Side over my dead body.

 _Loth-dad:_ That merit system seems very over complicated. Why don’t you just find something that works on a one to one ratio? That is much easier for children to understand. They need firm, simple rules. Like, do your chores, then get a jawbreaker, or do something bad, then have a time out.

 _Uncle Dad:_ The Kid hasn’t had any trouble with the rules. We have some rules that are much more complicated, and he does fine. Sometimes he ask questions when he shouldn’t, or doesn’t know he’s made a pun, but he understands the others very well.

 _Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ The Kid is smart. Just because your children are too stupid to understand simple math, doesn’t mean all children are.

 _Uncle Dad:_ That was harsh :(

 _Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ Oh wow, I can’t believe you use emojis. I figured clones were allergic or something, at least the other ones I know.

 _Uncle Dad:_ One, who said I was a clone. Two, now who’s making sweeping generalisations?

 _B &B&Bub: _I’m sure that he’s going to grow up into a wonderful adult. Everyone worries at times about how they’re doing as a parent. If you do your best, and make sure he gets love and support, he will be fine.

 _Uncle Dad:_ Thank you!

 

**DANCING, BEDSABRES AND OTHER HOBBIES**

Something I’ve found has worked really well for The Kid with having to spend a lot of time on the ship has been developing hobbies with him. It also works to provide him with a well rounded education, we all have different things to teach him.

For example, Uncle LL has been helping with more of a traditional education. I’ve mentioned this before. As well as ecology, and geography, she’s teaching him maths. It’s good he’ll be able to do maths well, I’ve never been that good with numbers. I think it’s genetic.

Uncle T has been surprisingly helpful! He’s been teaching The Kid music recently. The Kid is having a bit of trouble with it, Uncle T learned music very naturally, and doesn’t seem to understand The Kid needs to pick it up a different way. Uncle LL has stepped in a few times. But it’s nice to see them doing something together that I don’t have to later teach The Kid not to do.

Uncle LG has continued with the reading. They’ve been reading a few too many noir novels recently, but at least they seem to be a little more age appropriate. Again, if anyone knows any good kids books, please share! He also sometimes does arts and crafts with The Kid.

To make it even better we’re getting a new ship at the moment, and aside from finally having room to swing a loth-cat, there will be plenty of special spaces for his hobbies. This should include a craft nook, and a special room for all the fish and lizards. We’ve had them in the engine room until now, so I’m sure they’ll like the space as much as I will.

We’re getting a dojo, with a ballet bar. He’s very excited for Uncle T to teach him ballet. I must admit, all the dances I know require a lot more people. I’m also glad we’ll have a safer space to teach him fencing. He’s been playing with swords on the bed at the moment (we call it bedsabres), and while it is important he learn how to use a sword, I want to make the learning environment safe.

At times it feels like this could work. We’re going to get there, all five of us.

**Comments on DANCING, BEDSABRES AND OTHER HOBBIES:**

_Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ I’m glad you’ll have more space, the old ship was far too small. I just hope you’ve fixed your AI.

 _Uncle Dad:_ EXCUSE ME? WHO ARE YOU?

 _Mom on Mandalore:_ Surely the best way for him to be safe would be not to teach him how to use a sword. If you absolutely have to, a blaster is a much safer way to go. But even that should wait until he’s older.

 _Uncle Dad:_ If we get into a fight, he’s going to know how to defend himself. Plus he’ll try to use the swords regardless, I’d rather he know how to use them properly.

 _Ms Dominatrix Fall Line:_ I really hope that by swords you mean the lightsabres you stole. Because a vibrosword is going to teach him terrible habits.

 _Uncle Dad:_ YOU! GET OFF MY BLOG! I AM BLOCKING YOU RIGHT NOW!

 _Mara Finwej:_ My boys are currently reading The BFZ (the big friendly zillo-beast) and it’s a really lovely story.

 _Uncle Dad:_ Thank you!

 _B &B&Bub: _Aw, I’m glad things are getting easier for you. Being a parent isn’t always easy, but they more than make up for the trouble they cause. Even when your little one steals the wig of a visiting senator…

 _Uncle Dad:_ Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to unnaturalhistory who helped with the description of sex-toy care, and is also just generally an awesome person!


End file.
